An emerging area that I would welcome your opinion on is Opinion-based Sexual Orientation, which the various -ism lobbies are moving towards demanding as a right.
This has been quite prominent in the recent pitched battle concerning Julie Birchill / Suzanne Moore and Transexuality.
It is also quite prominent in the recent all-of-a-sudden adoption of ‘anti-harrassment’ policies by umpteen atheist groups in North America:
It is an interestingly different argument to the now-traditional “homosexuality is genetic/not a choice”, while religion is just an opinion, so discimination against the HS community is like racism  and the religious must just suck up whatever comes their way.
The sharpest one will be whether “Genderqueer” (I choose man/woman presentation based on how I feel at any particular time) claims confer a right to impose limitations on the actions of others, since (as far as I can see anyway) there is no basis whatsoever for the existence of the orientation outside bald assertion.
To me, if claims for allowing discrimination against religion because it is an opinion succeed, the Genderqueer claims fail the same hurdle.
This kind of extreme form of post-modernistic self-determination is quite surreal. What it is essentially amounts to is “I can choose to be whatever I want to be at any particular moment and I have a right to demand you accept it and treat me as the status I choose to be”.
And of course, it is utterly illogical and inconsistent. It’s one thing to establish over a long-term period gender dysphoria, it’s another to simply demand society flex to your daily will. I might as well turn up to someone who believed this, claim that I *am* the King and therefore they must serve me in all things.
An emerging area that I would welcome your opinion on is Opinion-based Sexual Orientation, which the various -ism lobbies are moving towards demanding as a right.
This has been quite prominent in the recent pitched battle concerning Julie Birchill / Suzanne Moore and Transexuality.
It is also quite prominent in the recent all-of-a-sudden adoption of ‘anti-harrassment’ policies by umpteen atheist groups in North America:
eg http://atheists.org/conferencecodeofconduct
which is based on this:
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy
It is an interestingly different argument to the now-traditional “homosexuality is genetic/not a choice”, while religion is just an opinion, so discimination against the HS community is like racism  and the religious must just suck up whatever comes their way.
The sharpest one will be whether “Genderqueer” (I choose man/woman presentation based on how I feel at any particular time) claims confer a right to impose limitations on the actions of others, since (as far as I can see anyway) there is no basis whatsoever for the existence of the orientation outside bald assertion.
To me, if claims for allowing discrimination against religion because it is an opinion succeed, the Genderqueer claims fail the same hurdle.
I’m not expecting consistency, however :-).
This kind of extreme form of post-modernistic self-determination is quite surreal. What it is essentially amounts to is “I can choose to be whatever I want to be at any particular moment and I have a right to demand you accept it and treat me as the status I choose to be”.
And of course, it is utterly illogical and inconsistent. It’s one thing to establish over a long-term period gender dysphoria, it’s another to simply demand society flex to your daily will. I might as well turn up to someone who believed this, claim that I *am* the King and therefore they must serve me in all things.